Macedonia Ex-PM's Luxury Limo Purchase Probed

The Special Prosecution, SJO on Tuesday said it has launched an investigation codenamed 'Tank' over suspicions that two former government officials, who it did not name, were involved in an illicit deal to secretly buy a luxury Mercedes limousine for then-PM Gruevski in 2012.

"There is a reasonable doubt that the first suspect (a female), in order to fulfil Prime Minister's wish to procure a special type of motor vehicle, encouraged the second suspect to misuse his office during a public procurement and to unlawfully favour a certain company in order to obtain that type of vehicle, the SJO said in a press release.

The SJO opened the investigation based on conversations between top government officials which came to light during the massive illegal wiretapping scandal which the opposition revealed in early 2015.

In May 2015, the opposition aired a batch of tapes containing alleged conversations between then Prime Minister Gruevski, his cousin, the now resigned secret police chief, Saso Mijalkov and then Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska, which it said showed how the PM covertly purchased a Mercedes costing almost 600,000 euro.

"Until the local elections, we will pretend that it is for MVR [Interior Ministry] purposes... and I will use it only for destinations where there are no journalists meeting me," Gruevski appears to tell Jankuloska on the tapes. 

Gruevski's alleged voice on the tapes only used the letter 'M' when talking about the Mercedes. 

Another conversation between Jankuloska and Mijalkov reveals the exact price for the fully-equipped car - 575,000 euro.

"It's a fantasy, I have never seen anything similar," Jankuloska tells Mijalkov, adding that they had hidden it from the public in the...